[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 35 (Thursday, March 14, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S2095]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT

  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I have two articles that I will ask to be 
printed in the Record. There continues to be wholesale, gross, 
misleading statements with regard to the Decency Act that was included 
in the telecommunications bill.
  Somehow we must respond to the whole avalanche of highly financed 
special interest groups who are opposed to the measure that 
overwhelmingly passed in the U.S. Senate and in the House of 
Representatives. I have no quarrel whatsoever with the process we 
incorporated in the measure to expedite the consideration by the 
courts.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record two articles, 
one from the Omaha World Herald of March 11, 1996, with the headline, 
``Internet Doesn't Fit Free-Press Concept,'' and another from the Omaha 
World Herald of March 13, 1996, with the headline, ``Some Internet Fare 
Worse Than Indecent.''
  There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                Internet Doesn't Fit Free-Press Concept

       An illogical argument is being used to attack the 
     Communications Decency Act, which was sponsored by Sen. J. 
     James Exon, D-Neb. Some of the law's critics argue that the 
     Internet, a worldwide network of computers linked by 
     telephone lines, should be free of Government regulation 
     under the First Amendment's freedom of the press protection.
       The anti-indecency law makes it a crime to transmit 
     indecent materials by computer when the materials are 
     accessible to children. Arguing that the law violates press 
     freedom is a group of plaintiffs consisting of Microsoft 
     Corp., the Society of Professional Journalists, the American 
     Society of Newspaper Editors and an organization calling 
     itself the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition.
       Certainly the Internet provides many opportunities for 
     research, rapid communication and entertainment. But a loose, 
     dynamic computer network isn't a newspaper. The two have 
     little in common.
       Newspapers are published by companies that depend on the 
     trust of their customers--their readers and advertisers--to 
     stay in business. These customers know who is in charge. They 
     know that a publisher ultimately is responsible for the 
     newspaper and its contents.
       A newspaper has editors who select what is to be published. 
     They rank the news in importance and broad interest. They 
     package it for ease of comprehension. They operate under the 
     laws of libel. The newspaper can be held accountable and be 
     ordered to pay damages if it intentionally and maliciously 
     publishes false and damaging information.
       The Internet has no comparable editors, no comparable 
     controls, none of the continuous process of fact-checking and 
     verification that newspapers engage in. No person or group of 
     people is accountable for materials that appear on the 
     Internet. Rather, its millions of users are free to send out 
     whatever they choose, no matter how worthless, false or 
     perverted it might be. The result can resemble a hodgepodge 
     of raw and random facts and opinions. Some are worthy and 
     valuable. Others are outright nonsense.
       And no one stands behind the material disseminated on the 
     Internet.
       Congress passed the Exon bill to protect children. And 
     properly so. It's ridiculous to claim that the mantle of 
     press freedom should be stretched to protect computerized 
     pornographers and predators.
                                                                    ____


              [From the Omaha World Herald, Mar. 13, 1996]

                 Some Internet Fare Worse Than Indecent

                        (By Arianna Huffington)

       If there is one problem with the recently signed 
     Communications Decency Act, which makes it illegal to post 
     ``indecent'' material on the Internet, it is its name. 
     Discussions of indecency and pornography conjure up images of 
     Playboy and Hustler, when in fact the kind of material 
     available on the Internet goes far beyond indecency--and 
     descends into barbarism.
       Most parents have never been on the Internet, so they 
     cannot imagine what their children can easily access in 
     cyberspace: child molestation, bestiality, sadomasochism and 
     even specific descriptions of how to get sexual gratification 
     by killing children.
       Though First Amendment absolutists are loathe to admit it, 
     this debate is not about controlling pornography but about 
     fighting crime.
       There are few things more dangerous for a civilization than 
     allowing the deviant and the criminal to become part of the 
     mainstream. Every society has had its red-light districts, 
     but going there involved danger, stigmatization and often 
     legal sanction. Now the red-light districts can invade our 
     homes and our children's minds.
       During a recent taping of a ``Firing Line'' debate on 
     controlling pornography on the Internet, which will air March 
     22, I was stunned by the gulf that separates the two sides. 
     For Ira Glasser, executive director of the American Civil 
     Liberties Union, and his team, it was about freedom and the 
     First Amendment. For our side, headed by Bill Buckley, it was 
     about our children and the kind of culture that surrounds 
     them.
       There are three main arguments on the other side, and we 
     are going to be hearing a lot of them in the year ahead as 
     the ACLU's challenge to the Communications Decency Act comes 
     to court.
       The first is that there is no justification for abridging 
     First Amendment rights. The reality is that depictions of 
     criminal behavior have little to do with free speech. 
     Moreover, there is no absolute protection of free speech in 
     the Constitution. The First Amendment does not cover slander, 
     false advertising or perjury, nor does it protect obscenity 
     or child pornography.
       Restricting criminal material on the Internet should be a 
     matter of common sense in any country that values its 
     children more than it values the rights of consumers addicted 
     to what degrades and dehumanizes.
       Civilization is about trade-offs. and I would gladly 
     sacrifice the rights of millions of Americans to have easy 
     Internet access to ``Bleed Little Girl Bleed'' or ``Little 
     Boy Snuffed'' for the sake of reducing the likelihood that 
     one more child would be molested or murdered. With more than 
     80 percent of child molesters admitting they have been 
     regular users of hard-core pornography, it becomes impossible 
     to continue hiding behind the First Amendment and denying the 
     price we are paying.
       The second most prevalent argument against regulating 
     pornography on the Internet is that it should be the parents` 
     responsibility. This is an odd argument from the same people 
     who have been campaigning for years against parents' rights 
     to choose the schools their children attend. Now they are 
     attributing to parents qualities normally reserved for God--
     omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence. In reality, 
     parents have never felt more powerless to control the 
     cultural influences that shape their children's character and 
     lives.
       The third argument that we heard a lot during the ``Firing 
     Line'' debate is that it would be difficult, nay impossible, 
     to regulate depictions of criminal behavior in cyberspace. We 
     even heard liberals lament the government intrusion such 
     regulations would entail. How curious that we never hear how 
     invasive it is to restrict the rights of businessmen 
     polluting the environment or farmers threatening the 
     existence of the kangaroo rat.
       Yet, it is difficult to regulate the availability of 
     criminal material on the Internet, but the decline and fall 
     of civilizations throughout history is testimony to the fact 
     that maintaining a civilized society has never been easy. One 
     clear sign of decadence is when abstract rights are given 
     more weight than real lives.
       It is not often that I have the opportunity to side with 
     Bill Clinton, who has eloquently defended restrictions on 
     what children may be exposed to on the Internet. When the 
     president is allied with the Family Research Council, and 
     Americans for Tax Reform is allied with the ACLU, we know 
     that the divisions transcend liberal vs. conservative. They 
     have to do with our core values and most sacred priorities.

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